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Freezing For Storage
Freezing food is a way of extending the shelf life of your food by many times past its normal shelf life. Though the amount of time a food can be stored even in the freezer varies on a case-by-case basis, the pattern is that well-frozen food can last much longer than when left fresh. Sausages that would last for two days maximum once opened can last for up to two months in the freezer. Bell peppers that would perish quickly can last for months once frozen. Fruits can even be frozen to be stored for off-seasons, though doing such for fruits especially is difficult process. You should always freeze a good portion of unused food, cooked or raw, if you hope to save as much money as you possibly can. To freeze food is not as simple as putting it in the freezer. If you do this, you are dooming yourself, your money, and your food. If you leave it in its original packaging once you freeze it, you should be ashamed. These are terrible habits to get into and will doom your food to freezer burn, or even cellular damage, due to ice crystals forming throughout an item. This is especially easy to do in fruits, and also in vegetables, due to their higher water content. Provided is a basic guide to how you can freeze your food best. Freezing Meat This is the one skill you need to make sure you have if you plan to store your food and budget well. In order to freeze your meat well, you need to remove as much air from the surface of your cuts as possible. This can easily be done by wrapping your meat in a good portion of moisture-resistant freezer wrap, or plastic wrap, although freezer wrap is the better choice here. Wax paper can be used to separate thin cuts and patties from each other in order to wrap in groups. Fold the wrap over the meat, while carefully pushing air outwards from the center. Make sure there is as little air left as possible once finished. Afterwards, tape the open edges down if necessary, and transfer to a zip lock bag. Again, make ABSOLUTELY SURE there is AS LITTLE AIR as possible left over. Once you freeze it, leftover moisture particles condense into water and freeze into crystallized ice, which would contribute to freezer burn, and that's no good. Once you're finished, label the bag with what it is and when it was wrapped, and place into the freezer. This process can be repeated for virtually all cuts of meat, though some are more difficult to wrap. Freezing fresh Vegetables It is advised for you to buy either frozen or canned vegetables instead. Though they are diminished in quality, frozen vegetables are a much more affordable and easy solution. If you do place produce into the freezer, especially a water-rich vegetable like an onion, the water content inside of the cellular structure will crystallize and rupture the onion on a very fine level. Once thawed, the onion would be much softer than before, and will come out as widely unappetizing. If you must, then you should freeze them so fast that the water inside has no chance to crystallize. In order to freeze vegetables without any sort of cellular breakdown, you will have to submerge them in liquid nitrogen, or freeze them with dry ice. Good luck with that, I'm not even going to cover it. Freezing fresh fruits. Again, either buy canned or pre-frozen instead. Unlike frozen vegetables, there is a subjective upside to freezing fruit. Just like with vegetables, the formation of ice crystals will form with slow cooling. Once fully thawed, fruits will commonly leave a lot of their juice behind. This isn't always a bad thing, depending on what fruit and what you want to do with it. Freezing fruits like peaches and berries this way can allow for them to be used in pies, deserts and other things. If you wish to freeze fruit in a way that lets it thaw and remain as close to fresh as possible, you will have to submerge the fruit in liquid nitrogen or store alongside dry ice. The intensely low temperatures will freeze the fruit faster than ice crystals take to form, leaving the produce intact.